


Flesh and Bones

by craple



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, House of Black and White, Pre-Relationship, Scarification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craple/pseuds/craple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aegon the Dragon Prince looks at her under long lashes. “I’ve been wondering, the story behind your hair, and the mark you bear.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flesh and Bones

**Author's Note:**

> i was bored.

It won’t be her first kill, nor will it be her first mission.

Her first kill is the stable boy back in King’s Landing. Poor boy – not innocent though, she’s sure, as it is, after all, King’s Landing – looking for money, a way to please. To be noticed.

She feels neither regret nor guilt, even until now. It is probably worrying, were she anywhere but the House of Black and White. At Winterfell, perhaps, her father would do anything in his power for her not to _be_ like this.

But her father is dead, had died long ago, so it is no matter now, she supposes.

This – this won’t be her first mission either. Her first was when she pick-pocketed and murdered the old man by the dock. It wasn’t necessarily important, or worth remembering per-se, but it was her first.

“Have you decided yet, my child?” asks the Kindly Old Man.

Arya – _Len_ , she is Len now – looks back and forth between the brand, hot and burning, and the paint. Her hair is not yet curled; still the rat-brown, stiff-straight hair she has, similar to her father and her half-brother Snow.

The scissors lay next to the dagger, a pretty little thing she procured from a Volanteese’s nobles, above the black and white cloak she is finally going to wear.

Len tries to recall of the man who owed her life, several faces ago. How he sings, the scars marring his back, the red-and-white hair she can never seem to forget. A Lorathi, one of which had slipped from his accent, who knew too much of Bravos and too much of everything.

Dying her hair is out of the option.

“Brand,” she says. “And the scissors.”

Kindly Old Man nods his permission, and the servants begin to move.

\--

Aegon the Dragon Prince looks at her under long lashes. “I’ve been wondering, the story behind your hair, and the mark you bear.”

The dagger slips between his fingers, startled. Len shifts her weight from one foot to another, watches prickle of blood sliding down the wound she made on the prince’s neck earlier. Precisely three minutes and forty two seconds ago.

Aegon cocks his head. “Also, how in the seven hells did you manage to get on out ship, but oh well, what does it matter? One of us is going to die tonight; I’d rather it’s not me.”

Len looks at the prince, stares at her reflection in the mirror.

Half of her hair has been shaved, with the mark of the Red God branded to the same part, clear for all to see. Common people would never recognise the sign.

Unfortunately, the Dragon Prince is educated enough to know so.

Fixing her grip on the dagger, Len smiles, and it’s all teeth. It’s the smile of Arya Stark – and her mask is slipping bit by bit.

“I was inspired by someone,” she tells him, and attacks.


End file.
